Tag Archives: entrepreneur

Andrew Chow is a Thought Leader on Social Media Strategy, DIY Public Relations and Life Coaching

Thought leader is business jargon for an entity that is recognized for having innovative ideas.

The term was coined in 1994, by Joel Kurtzman, editor-in-chief of the Booz, Allen & Hamilton magazine, Strategy & Business. “Thought leader” was used to designate interview subjects for that magazine who had business ideas that merited attention

How to leverage on social media to elevate youur thought leadership status?

1. Streamline Your Content. My forte is in Brand Communications, Social Media Strategy, Public Relations, Personal Branding and Creativity. I make sure I choose sites which can position myself best in respective domains. Keywords must be planned carefully to ensure your come on top within your competition. Prepare a posting schedule to avoid over-crowding of information within a short time.

2. Select Your platforms. Choose platforms for article directories with good page ranking and Alexa. If you have many presentation on different topics of your forte, Slideshare is a great platform. Twitter is a must for anyone with great inspiration to share every time.

3. Share Your Knowledge. My own experience is the best user-generated content I can put up to enrich accelerated learning among my followers and peers. Knowledge is everywhere, why not present them your own way to establish yourself as a though leader? Conduct quality survey regular to keep abreast of latest trend within your market.

4. Simplify Your Conversation. Gone are the days where we engage in length and senseless discussion on forums. Use Twitter and learn to comment within 140 characters. We need to think, speak and listen “140″ in social media age. Typically, if you cannot think of saying your Personal Mission Statement in 7 words, you lack a strong personal branding online.

5. Sell Your Expertise. 80% of our forte would be knowledge and 20% would be our expertise. Make others want your expertise after you have shared your knowledge. Customize the knowledge to their problem with unique solution is always a sure way to sell. Selling your expertise through electronic newsletter is acceptable as long as it happens once every 5 times.

6. Support Your Community. Be available in as many places as you can initially. You will not know where and who your potential customers will come from. Create a portal of sort to gather them in one place so that you can do targeted customer engagement in the future. A lot of marketers have no problem generating interest, but sustaining interest is another ball game altogether.

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I was invited by Sony Pictures for the preview of “Social Network” about 2 weeks before it was launched. After watching it, I was led to share my very 1st movie review on some of the “social truths”

1. My view is as good as yours. The movie – “Social Network” is a good overview of how social networking company – Facebook started with stories revolving around Mark Zuckerburg, Eduardo Saverin and Sean Parker. Though no one would say the movie plot is 100% accurate, the movie is subjectively researched and directed based on only the account of Eduardo Saverin. The interpretation of events are primarily through the eyes and mind of Eduardo, the co founder, who incidentally is said to be living in Singapore for the past 1.5 years. Maybe Mark should link up with another director to do a “Real Facebook” movie, i am sure he has his own version and story to tell.

2. Sometimes having a 3rd party is a good thing. Facebook may never be as successful as it is today had the founders not met Sean Parker, the co-founder of Napster and Plaxo as their initial advisor. Sean stretched the mind of Mark but Eduardo was totally unimpressed. In the end, Mark go with Sean and the rest is history. Personally, the timely insertion Sean made all the differences for Facebook. He may be the unwanted 3rd party but provided the best 2nd opinion on the future of Facebook at that time.

3. It is good to start well, but far better to end well. Though Sean is a extremely smart and charismatic guy, he was undone by his own arrogance. Due to some drug issue, he was forced to be out of Facebook. Had Sean Parker managed to stayed on, Facebook might have been more successful today.

4. Men place his self-esteem in what he can accomplish. Mark is depicted as arrogant, selfish and self-absorbed guy. He is after success but not energized by money. All young technopreneurs are depicted as flirtatious and incapable of handling serious romantic relationship. At the end of the movie, he was still trying his luck on reuniting with his ex girl friend through the very thing he invented – FACEBOOK!

5. Friendship is always tested in prosperity, not poverty. When times were bad, Mark and Eduardo stayed focused together. They had each other’s attention, discussed matters and fly together to pitch. Once money started coming in, and difference in direction set in, the friendship suffered. Never enter into any business relationship with your best friend, unless you are prepared to lose this friend inadvertently.

The business Truth:

1. Partnership is more important than any proposal. The movie also shows that business isn’t about the quality of business proposal but the quality of business partnership. Choose the right partners. The idea of social networking the Facebook way was the coolest idea back then. Had Mark, Eduardo and Sean managed the partnership better – disagree by agreeing, Facebook would have enjoyed the best of alliance, open source and also advertising. Ideas are simple, execution is important and finding the right partners is supreme.

2. Success is often born out of a crisis. Facebook which was created out of frustration by Mark just to forget a crush. Another version of the story is Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook to elevate his stature after not getting into any of the elite Finals Club in Harvard. When you are too much in a comfort zone, success is a mile away. When you are in combat zone, success will just be reached within an arm’s length.

3. To be relevant, all great brands should be Work-in-Progress. In the movie, Mark once mentioned “this thing will never be finish, it’s like fashion”. All business is a fashion business, it has cycle and ever evolving. No business will ever arrived and be finalized. To serve your target, you need to go with the flow and initiate changes most of the time. Do frequent brand audit, re-adjust your strategy and align your communication channels frequently. FACEBOOK is successful because they believe in sharing by offering its source codes to 3rd party developers to make them even popular. They seems to have no niche, they serve everyone!

4. Non Disclosure Agreement is usually the condition for out of court settlement. Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra all agree to settle out of court with a confidential agreement. They must never disclosure the details and must never claim to have any links to Facebook except for the ownership of common shares. On hindsight, 7% of Facebook valued at $25b (currently in 2010) is $1.75b. If 2 brothers had known how much will it worth today, they would never have settled for just $65million!

5. The 8 Law of Business Ideas:

Do not share your ideas with anyone unless you are prepared for it to be stolen

Do not force sell it to anyone who refuse to buy them

Avoid exploring ideas which are difficult to realize or implement.

If your good idea is stolen, you must know how to win it back by enhancing it.

You do not own any good ideas unless you see it to completion

All good ideas should be tested against second-guessing, deliberation and contemplation.

The difference between a great and a good idea is the person who first thought of it.

Calling all aspiring entrepreneurs in Singapore : The Business of Social 3.0 – Workshop One – Transformation – http://ow.ly/2CaQe

THE BUSINESS OF SOCIAL 3.0

A Series of Workshops on Making Social Media Work for Your Business

by Catalyst Connector

WORKSHOP ONE – TRANSFORM

16 September 2010 – Brewerkz Riverside Point

THE BUSINESS OF SOCIAL 3.0 is a series of Workshops on Making Social Media Work for Your Business by Catalyst Connector.

WORKSHOP ONE – TRANSFORM addresses the issues of how to make Social Media work in the business world and provides guidelines on the role of corporate Persona Management.

Whether a corporation or start-up, companies nowadays have to face and deal with many communities – its staff, suppliers, customers, partners and regulatory bodies. While it maintains a single outlook and projects a distinct image, it has to maintain multiple personas, carefully balancing each with the other to maintain credibility toward success. Balancing and maintaining all these various personas is a delicate act.

In the age of Social Media, the power of blogs, tweets, feeds and Facebook, are forcing upon businesses an onslaught of messages, feedback, critique and commentary. Business partners and potential business partners form opinions prior to a meeting. Rumors, opinions and reputations spread at the speed of light – often without the participation, or even knowledge, of the protagonist. It is critical that businesses, especially startups and SMBs, develop the ability to monitor, measure and manage their online personas to enhance their business networking and matching opportunities.

At Catalyst Connector, our strategy capitalizes on social voice as a policy, utilizing infrastructure and applications with a proven methodology to manage and maintain positive energy to pro-actively acquiring prospective customers and partners.

The Business of Social 3.0

WORKSHOP ONE – TRANSFORM

EVENT & REGISTRATION DETAILS

Summary: Making Social Media Work in the Business World and the role of corporate Persona Management

Intended Audience:

Entrepreneurs and Senior Management in New Media and Business Development

Developers seeking to understand how to sell technology or services into a social space, and how to leverage on use of social media to generate business leads.

Agency Directors in Account Service and Media Planning.

Senior Executives in brand activation and marketing operations.

Anyone who seeks the use of digital marketing and social media for international business networking and matching to achieve revenue opportunities.

Developing a Winsome Social Media Strategy for SMEs

Learn about:
 Overview of New Media : Content, Conversion & Communities
 Aligning new media strategy to its business strategy
 Identifying different applications for different information
 Mastering the art of conversation, instead of campaign
 Adhering to best practices and landscape of social media